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Longitude 105 degrees: China at the Global Feast

August 5, 2012 1 Comment Filed Under: Food, Recipes, Uncategorized

Celebrating Jessica Ennis’ win. The Olympic Swiss rowing team visits.

Latest report from Stratford Old Town Hall: we’ve seen athletes! Big ones. In fact they are all enormous, looming triangular people with long limbs and mile-wide shoulders. They have shiny white teeth and exude energy, cleanliness and good health. This is jock culture taken to its highest level, virtually super-human. Looking at these athletes I have an uncharitable thought: these guys are just genetically lucky. If you naturally grow to 6 foot 5 and are muscular well, doh! of course running, jumping and stuff is gonna be easy.
Why are we suddenly seeing athletes? A local venue that was running a nightly party for the athletes has been shut down by health and safety so the entire shindig has been decamped to Stratford Town Hall. The upstairs ballroom is now pulsating to bad euro-techno until four in the morning and will be for the next eight days. My ‘bedroom’ is above that.
Alison, the manager of the town hall, is trying to squeeze every penny in revenue from the games. She’s attempting to rent out, maximise profit, from each square inch. Yesterday I went to my ‘bedroom’ which out of the three rooms available, is the only one with a shower, and discovered a dripping naked man. “Didn’t you know?” he said “Alison has given permission to workers at our event in a local park to shower in your room”. He was not joking.
Last night Chinese supper club hostess Cherry Smart of Fedbytang supper club, based in South East London, was our guest chef. She was joined by Hammant and head chef Chao from new dimsum restaurant Courtesan Dim Sum. It was always going to be a problem steaming dim sum for so many guests without specialist equipment. I visited Courtesan Dim Sum’s kitchens to see their wok range, a terrifyingly hot series of wok burners, set in a sink and cooled by running cold water; also high pressure steamers for dim sum and dozens of stacked bamboo baskets. No western-style kitchen can provide that kind of heat. We have to improvise with pots, griddle pans, trays of boiling water. While diners waited, Hammant gave an interesting talk on dim sum, originally a royal food, then a treat given to entice traders on the Silk Road, and how his Brixton based restaurant is attempting to update this genre of food with fusions such as jerk chicken dim sum. It takes around 5 to 10 to train as a dim sum chef. The translucent ‘skin’ of the dumplings demonstrates a particular skill.
Cherry Smart’s pork canapés disappeared at a faster rate than any others during the Global Feast. People can’t get enough pig it seems.
The duck breast main course was, according to guests, moist and not dry which it can often be, although some guests complainted about the large portion size. I never really understand people complaining about too much food. Too little food is a problem but too much food?
Cherry comes from Hong Kong and her food, bravely, is Cantonese, the most common form of Chinese food found in restaurants. Brave because Cherry shows her guests the real home-cooked Cantonese.

Menu
  TsingTao beer from Qing Dao in China
Canapé
Mini Chinese crispy roast pork belly
Soy sauce soft boiled egg with salmon roe
Another sort of pork
Starter:
Dim sum by Courtesan dim sum
Prawn and roe steamed dumpling
Mushroom puff
Chicken dim sum
Mains: 
Sichuan peppercorn duck breast with lightly dressed cucumber, sweet and spicy soy sauce dip and steamed rice with star anise
Stir fried asparagus with carrot and black fungus 
Dessert:
A slice of mango tart with fresh coconut ice cream.
I’d like to thank Tala cookware for their sponsorship of the tart tins. Very useful! I have lots of Tala stuff in my kitchen. Nice retro packaging too.
I particularly loved the marinated soy eggs. Cherry gave me the recipe.
Eggs, lightly boiled, shelled.
Soy sauce
Mirin
Sugar
White Pepper, ground
Fresh ginger, minced
Salmon roe
Put the soy, mirin, sugar, pepper, ginger in a bowl with the egg and marinate for 24 hours.
Cut in half, revealing the white interior and the brown outsides. Top with salmon roe. Delicious!
Tonight: Singapore from PlusSixFive supper club. Book here.
Book for the rest of the Global Feast. Only a week to go.


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  1. Tang

    August 6, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    Thanks Kerstin for such a lovely post. It was a great night!

    Thanks for those who came to support us on the Chinese night! Please check out our Facebook page to find out upcoming supper club dates! http://www.Facebook.com/FedByTang

    Reply

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MsMarmiteLover aka Kerstin Rodgers.

Chef, photographer, author, journalist, blogger. Pioneer of the supperclub movement.

This is my food and travel blog, with recipes, reviews and travel stories. I also stray into politics, feminism, gardening.

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msmarmitelover

Kerstin Rodgers/MsMarmiteLover
Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam. Rose Appl Apple rose blossom tarts with rose jam.  Rose Apple Blossom Tarts

Serves 8

Equipment: 
Microwave
Cupcake or muffin tin

I use a red-skinned apple to make these, to get a hint of blush at the edges of the ‘petals’.

Ingredients:
4 Pink Lady or Royal Gala apples, cored, cut into quarters, sliced thinly into half moons
1 lemon, squeezed
1 pack all butter readymade puff pastry 320g, on a roll, cut into 8 strips about 6 cms long
100g of melted butter
1/2 jar of rose jam
1 or 2 tbsp cinnamon or cardamom, ground 
Pinch maldon salt
2 or 3 tbsp icing sugar

Instructions

Prepare a bowl of acidulated water (cold water with lemon juice) to prevent browning.
Core the apples, and cut them in quarters. Slice thinly into half-moons (a mandolin is useful for this). 
Put them into a large bowl of cold water with the lemon.
Microwave the bowl of sliced apples for 5 minutes until soft enough to bend slightly but not cook them.
Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
Roll out the puff pastry. Divide into 8 sections by cutting the roll into quarters then halving each quarter. You will end up with 8 approximately 6cm strips.
Brush the strip with melted butter then paint with a layer of rose jam. You can then dust with either ground cinnamon or cardamom.
Lay the apple slices along the top of the pastry strip, overlapping them. Fold up the bottom half of the pastry strip to make an pleat with the skin side of the apple half moon poking over the top.
Roll up the folded pastry strips until they look like a rose made of apple at the top
Place ‘rose’ side up, in a buttered cupcake tin
Repeat until all are done and bake for 20 -30 minutes.
Using a tea strainer or small sieve, sprinkle with icing sugar.
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